Effects of power outage linger

Sewage spills, economic losses result from blackout

An unprecedented blackout that left millions in the county in the dark ended 12 hours after it began — dealing the local economy a blow, giving every student in the region a three-day weekend and causing a massive sewage spill that fouled beaches in four cities.

Police said there were no significant crimes or reports of looting, although firefighters responded to numerous medical emergencies and rescues of people trapped in elevators during the biggest power outage in the region’s history.

“San Diegans did a magnificent job of turning what could have be a real disaster into something they all handled really well,” Mayor Jerry Sanders said.

However, the loss of electricity did have some real consequences.

About 1.9 million gallons of sewage spilled into the Los Peñasquitos Lagoon after a pump station that doesn’t have an on-site emergency generator stopped working. That prompted officials to close all beaches north of Scripps Pier through Del Mar, Solana Beach and into the Cardiff area of Encinitas at least until Saturday.

The spill initially was estimated at 3.2 million gallons, but county officials revised that Friday morning after they got more detailed information about the duration and volume of the accident.

Generators also failed at two hospitals, including the lone generator at Scripps Mercy Hospital in Chula Vista. The unit was replaced within two hours, while seven high-risk patients were moved to other hospitals. Flashlights were used to illuminate some areas of the hospital.

At Sharp Memorial Hospital, one generator quit and the remaining three operated at less than full power for several hours until being fixed. Officials at both hospitals said changes need to be made to avoid a future mishap. Hospital officials said patient care was uninterrupted.

The blackout proved costly for local restaurants, many of which had to discard food and lost business. Even after the power came back, nearly 800 food facilities in San Diego had to close their doors because they were in areas where tap water could not be used unless it was boiled.

Thursday’s outage occurred after two major power lines serving the region failed about 3:40 p.m. Nearly 7 million people from Mexico to Orange County, and in parts of Imperial and Riverside counties and Arizona were affected.

“We had no idea that it was widespread, but within minutes we had indications that Mission Valley was out, that Chula Vista was out, and then we knew this was very widespread on our whole system,” SDG&E President Michael Niggli said. “First time we’ve ever had a full blackout … so that meant we had to bring the whole system back from dark.”

The restoration of power was complicated because the company’s power plants themselves were offline, Niggli said. As the main transmission lines became operational again, power was restored to the north and south of the county.

By 8:30 p.m., Orange County customers were back online. By 10 p.m., 55,000 customers had regained power. Power resumption was slow at that point until midnight, then it sped up. By 2 a.m., 500,000 customers had electricity, and that’s when SDG&E realized it was making “large progress,” Niggli said.